Fig. 4

Dissemination of tumour cells as a tool for prediction of outcome.

a Illustration of digestion, staining, and imaging of disseminated cells to caudal venous plexus (the area in the black box) of the zebrafish larvae. b Representative images of dissemination in the zebrafish larvae with tumour material from primary tumours of Patient 2 and Patient 4. Yellow arrowheads point to metastasized tumour cells (red). c Quantification of number of disseminated cells in the zebrafish larvae from primary tumours (n = 14, experiment done once) and metastatic lesions (n = 5, experiment done once) compared to patients who had a progression-free survival (PFS) of less than 24 months (red bars) with a cut-off value of 6 (blue dotted line). d Quantification of number of disseminated cells in the zebrafish larvae from primary tumours compared to staging with a cut-off value of 4 (red dotted line). n = 5, n = 9, n = 3, n = 2 for Stage I–II, Stage III A–C, Stage IV A–B, and Stage X (an initially unknown stage that was later confirmed to be Stage IV), respectively. All experiments were done once. Pat: patient.